It’s the lull before the storm: With Microsoft set to reveal new Lumia flagships next month, we have a final peek at what Windows phone usage looks like after a year of low-end and mid-range phones. The good news? Multiple new handsets are now being tested, so our terrible year is almost over.
As you may remember, AdDuplex bills itself as the largest cross-promotion network for Windows phone and Windows 8 apps, empowering developers and publishers to promote their apps for free by helping each other. And each month it provides a tantalizing glimpse at which Windows phone (and Windows) devices people are actually using.
Here’s what’s happening this month.
New devices. I’m going to put this one right up front since Windows phone usage, by necessity, has gotten pretty boring over the past year. AdDuplex sees evidence of the Lumia 950, Lumia 950 XL and the more recently rumored Lumia 550 (4.7-inch 720p display) and Lumia 750/850 (5-inch 720p display) its usage stats. As exciting, perhaps, it has also spied the Xiaomi MI4, a 1080p 4.9-inch handset. This is good news: Excellent new devices are indeed afoot.
Top 10 devices worlwide show little change. That isn’t surprising, of course. The Lumia 520–which is two years old–is finally starting to show a more dramatic usage drop, while the Lumia 640 and 435 continue their respective rises.
Microsoft/Nokia is still number one and by a wide margin, with 96.89 percent of all usage. Also-rans include HTC (1.41 percent usage), Samsung (0.65), and who gives a crap who else, really. It’s pretty much just Microsoft/Nokia. (I’d be more interested in seeing a breakdown between older Nokia handsets and newer Microsoft ones.)
Windows 10 Mobile is almost at 5 percent of usage. Windows Phone 8.1 is of course the most-often used Windows phone OS version, with 79 percent usage. Windows Phone 8.0 is 10.1 percent, and Windows Phone 7.x falls to 6.1 percent.
Lumia 640 surges in the United States and is now the second-most-used handset (with 11.2 percent usage) after the Lumia 635, with 31 percent (or 36 percent if you include the 630, which you should). There are no non-Lumias on this list at all.
AT&T is stil the favored carrier in the US with 33.4 percent usage (plus 17.7 percent for Cricket). T-Mobile is third with 14.7 percent, and Verizon comes in at 12.4 percent.
And … you know. Basically, looking forward to October like everyone else.
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